Popularity of Batsman a Triumph of Rampant Consumerism

This all flows back to The Sean's top 25 countdown. The top players were all Batsmen. Why? Batsmen have had it so easy for so long - bigger, fatter bats. Flatter wickets. Its not even a recent development. Why did pitches start to be covered? Just to make life easier for those love-hungry wastrels called batsmen. Let's not forget that it has only been a recent development to toast the success of the bowler who's taken a 5 wicket haul by letting him hold up the ball to the crowds. Batsmen have been hogging the limelight by holding up their bat to the crowd for reaching a paltry Fifty runs for god knows how long.

But why is this?

Well, I have been speaking to the leading lights of the left wing - Ken Livingstone, Tony Benn, Paul Rudd (who, dare I say it, was Clueless on matters of politics) and Cover Drive Man.

They have all informed me that the popularity of the Batsman is due to nothing less than Globalisation and Consumerism.

Think about this for a minute. Batsmen flash their bats at the cameras all day. The bats are plastered with the paraphernalia of sponsorship, sometimes even the batsman's face is covered with the trendy labels of the day. Replay after replay shows the batsman striking a pose by holding his labels up to the camera. The batsman is doing all he can to sell the manufacturers produce other than screaming "COCA-****ING-COLA" at the stump mic.

In contrast, what does the bowler offer the modern day marketing department?

I say "**** all". The bowler doesn't get to choose his ball of choice. Apparently, its "not fair" for the bowler to stick his sponsor's labels on the ball because its considered "ball tampering". Bollocks. If the batsman can stick labels on his bat, how can the bowler compete with the demands of consumerism if he's not allowed to place his Peter Beardsley Panini football sticker on the shiny side of the ball. So what if it makes the ball swing more, this would just help to balance the playing field which has been unbalanced by the demands of multi-national Corporations and the BCCI.

Its time to call a halt, my friends. No more should the batsman be the only person that kids can emulate! No more should a child only be able to buy "Virinder Sehwag's Bat" when they go to their local sports shop. No, no, no. Its time that bowlers were allowed to take their own ball into each innings and kids could go and ripely pluck a "Mohammad Aamir Cherry" from the very same shelf.

My solution. At the start of each innings, every fielding player is given their own ball. This means that each bowler will have a fair crack with the new ball if they so wish. If they wish to bring in an old ball to start with, then so be it. Not only will batsmen be given a much sterner examination with so many occurances of the new ball to face, but the bowler can personalise their cherry to their heart's content.

We'll see monogrammed initials and the player's number on one side of the ball, and who can see the harm in the other side of a shiny new red ball having "COCA-COLA" emblazoned on it. In the one day version of the game, I'm sure the Ku Klux Klan would pay a pretty penny to have their name printed on the shiny side of a brand new white ball.

Let's think about the bowler and make things fair. The time has come for the era of the Batsman to be brought to a close. Bring on the balance for the bowler, and my friends, don't forget to yell, "Viva La Revolucion!"

>>>>>>WHHOOOOOOOOOSHHHHHHH>>>>>>Fascist Dictator of the Heath Davis Appreciation SocietySupporting Petone's Finest since the very start - Iain O'Brien
Adam Wheater - Another batsman off the Essex production line
Also Supporting the All Time #1 Batsman of All Time Ever - Jacques Kallis and the much maligned Peter Siddle.

Why did pitches start to be covered? Just to make life easier for those love-hungry wastrels called batsmen.

Good one.

But seriously uncovered wickets was something cricketers & administrators could not avoid in those days due to lack of proper ground maintenance , so the batsmen had develop techniques to counter it. Since spinners great & even your average became almost unplayable on such surfaces

It ceased to exist by the 70s in England mainly when adminstrators decided to use covers.

creator >> destroyer, similar when thinking of football. Attackers are praised much more than defenders due to the increased difficulty of their task, and also the smaller room for error in most cases.

Also, instead of a great pitch being a Napier, have crumblers and and greentops be the new "great" pitches.

Or we could put Coca Cola signs on the pitch as well. Would add advertising and great spots for the bowler to aim to to get more spin/seam.

Originally Posted by Athlai

Jeets doesn't really deserve to be bowling.

Originally Posted by Dan

in the future where we're all social justice-y Cribb can ride down the street to pick up some raw milk from Coles on a motorised esky while smoking meth, firing an RPG into the air, and carrying the case of British-import Stella he's polygamously (and privately) married alongside a genderfluid Zambian businessperson and a coke-snorting 18-year-old cyborg girl.

This is a great Idea Phlegm. Each bowler when they come on to bowl can put a bowling marker somewhere on the pitch - preferably near the batsman's end. This would be their sponsor's logo. Then we could have slowmo replays showing the sponsor's logo on the ball kissing the sponsor's logo on the pitch and then the dismissal of the hapless batsman would be a mere epilogue to the real action.

I'm not sure whether Mark Nicholas would be able to keep the semen in his pants were he to witness the pure sexual thrill of the ball's logo making the sweet, sweet impact on the pitch logo.